Of Chiara Daina | 30 May 2014 The Fact Chronicle
Memory has short legs. Given that it is dutiful and right the request for compensation of 1.2 billion euros by the Ministry of Health alle società svizzere Roche and Novartis for damage caused to the National health system, non si può dire che il problema della speculazione delle case farmaceutiche sulla salute dei cittadini sia risolto. E certo non sarà neanche una multa dell’Antitrust (the 180 million euro one that the two Swiss giants got themselves last March) to prevent that Big Pharma continui a fare profitto sulla vita e la morte delle persone. Non è servito a nulla fine Pfizer 10.6 million euros in 2012 for creating the monopoly of latanoprost, the molecule for the glaucoma treatment. Né costringere la ditta americana a risarcire lo Stato italiano sborsando 14 million euros. Also useless US fine imposed $2.3 billion in 2009 for Bextra, an anti-inflammatory, which was later withdrawn from the market. A series of other stratospheric fines have been worth very little: the one from $1.4 billion apiece Eli Lilly for having illegally marketed an antipsychotic, Zyprexa, with harmful effects (2009); the one from